That's how it is today

I was talking to a friend a few days ago about how rude sales people are today. I mentioned that I had stood in line at the checkout counter at the supermarket for almost 30 minutes while the checker and the girl doing the bagging waited on only two customers ahead of me .

The two women were doing more talking with each other than they were checking and bagging groceries. They were just visiting while customers cooled their heels in line waiting to be waited on. By the time I got to the head of the line my legs were tired and my back was aching from the long period of standing . My patience level had dropped to zero.

Finally, when the checking and bagging of my groceries had completely stopped so they could continue their discussion, I said to the bagger, the one doing the most talking, " If you will stop talking the clerk can do her work and I can get out of this store before bedtime". It was about 11 AM at the time. All converstion between the two stopped and they finished up with my groceries very quickly but the bagger put the bag containing the eggs in the cart hard enough to break two eggs..." take that, old woman", she was probably thinking. So I got two broken eggs for my auduacity in speaking up.

My friend then told me of his recent experience with a salesgirl in a Radio Shack. The salesgirl was leaning on her elbows on the counter while a male co-worker was standing beside her patting her posterior. After waiting to pay for his items and being ignored , my friend said to the sales girl , " I want to join the party". She asked him what he meant...he said , " I want to come behind the counter and do like he is doing".

With all seriousness, the girl replied that he couldn't do that. My friend couldn't believe that she didn't get the message that he was being sarcastic and was in his own way telling her that she
should be waiting on customers.

So he and I talked about the work ethics, the rudness and generally how different is is today from the time I was young. He said me, " you just have to put up with it for that's how is is today ". In other words, the ethics and morals and courtesy and consideration of the past is gone and forgotten, outdated.

I don't believe that common courtesy , consideration for others and good work ethics is ever outdated. They are just not practiced today. The best book I ever read was ,
" Atlas Shrugged ," by Ayn Rand. It was all about personal responsibility in everything. The book was published in 1957 and has been in print ever since. I read recently that ' Atlas Shrugged', is used by most big businesses as part of their code of ethics by their management...I can't believe that managment took the book seriously considering that so many of those big companies are being bailed out by government today because of mismanagement and how so many of the CEO's took huge salaries and split when the company received the government's support money.

Yeah, things are sure different today but not better, sad to say.

Till next time.
Marion Springer